As George Waud is the first to concede, he is not a typical owner of the second favourite for the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe. “No,” he said this week, three days out from the most prestigious and valuable race of the European season, when his colt Maltese Cross will take on runners from racing’s superpowers. “And for that reason, I’m making the most of it.”
The backstory that has led Waud to the Bois de Boulogne on the first Sunday in October started in London, includes 23 years in Los Angeles as he worked his way up from the bottom rung of the movie industry, and more recently, a co-producer role on the award-winning revival of Cabaret in London’s West End. And from the day in the 1970s when Waud took a trip to Newmarket with his mother, racing has been a thread in the fabric.
